Global

Prof. Behnaz Farahi’s “Ocean of Dreams,” an interactive art installation currently on display in Kendall Square that features submissions from more than 400 international participants, is featured by Dezeen reporter Ben Dreith. “For me, design is ultimately a way of asking: what could be otherwise, and how might we help bring that possibility into being,” says Farahi. “That is also how I think about ‘Ocean of Dreams,’ as a space for collectively imagining and designing possible futures.”  

MIT startup Alsym Energy, cofounded by Prof. Kripa Varanasi, has developed an alternative to lithium-ion batteries using sodium ions, writes Morgan Clendaniel for Fast Company. “The battery is nonflammable and nontoxic, allowing it to be placed in more sensitive areas and saving money on cooling systems that often have to be co-installed with large lithium batteries,” explains Clendaniel.  

Prof. Behnaz Farahi joins GBH’s, “The Curiosity Desk," to discuss “Ocean of Dreams,” a public art installation that projects participants’ collective hopes for the future into a “living ocean,” which is on display at Kendall Square Plaza as part of MIT Future Fest. “At the moment when we have so many conversations about the future that are shaped by uncertainty about AI, war, climate change, and displacements, I hope this work creates a space for something a little different,” says Farahi. “Before we can build a different future, we first have to be able to imagine one.” 

BBC News reporter Chris Baraniuk highlights MIT startup Alsym Energy, which is developing sodium-ion batteries. Drew Buckley, chief executive at ESS Tech, “points out that sodium ion batteries could help distribute renewable energy to data centers,” writes Baraniuk. “And those batteries should be cheaper to run than lithium-ion alternatives, since they are not expected to require as much cooling.”  

MIT researchers have found that lower birth rates are associated with higher growth in Gross Domestic Product globally, writes The Atlantic’s Idrees Kahloon. “[P]erhaps more important than the observed correlation is the authors’ proposed explanation: that when prime-age workers become scarce, companies adapt by developing productivity-boosting technology,” notes Kahloon.  

Prof. Kristin Forbes speaks to Bloomberg’s Daniel Moss about how governments can prepare to restore inflation targets in the event of a prolonged miss and highlights the value of providing a clear timeline. “You don’t want to be responsible for hitting a target each month when a global shock will veer you off course,” says Forbes. “It’s about the direction of inflation, the path.”  

MIT researchers found that contrary to popular assumptions, lower birth rates have raised rather than lowered the Gross Domestic Product globally, writes The Dispatch’s Eli Kronenberg. “Across the board, we found that these lower birth rates were leading to a faster pace of technological adoption and progress,” says graduate student Keelan Beirne, a co-author on the paper. 

Cambridge Day’s Chloe Taft spotlights the 25th anniversary of The Fab Lab, digital fabrication network started at MIT, and its annual conference, FAB26, held this week throughout Cambridge. “We’re going to show things like rapid prototyping, making vehicles [at FAB26],” says Prof. Neil Gershenfeld. “[T]here’s examples of using the tools in the lab to make aquaponic and hydroponic systems for food, to make antennas and radios for data networks, to make shelter. You really can make almost anything today.” 

A study by MIT researchers has found evidence that the first signs of ozone depletion appeared in 1957 in the upper tropical stratosphere, driven by carbon tetrachloride, an industrial chemical introduced in the 1930s and widely used as a dry-cleaning and degreasing agent, writes Gizmodo reporter Ellyn Lapointe. “This finding underscores the importance of long-term atmospheric monitoring so that we can fully understand how it responds to chemical pollution,” Lapointe notes.

Writing for Bloomberg, Prof. Simon Johnson and Prof. Elisabeth Reynolds describe how the U.S. can maintain its technological leadership by investing in research focused on critical minerals, semiconductors, biotechnology, quantum computing, drones and advanced manufacturing.  “Invention is important, but technological leadership in the 21st century will go to the country that adopts these new ideas rapidly and applies them in clever ways,” Johnson and Reynolds write. “And that will require the U.S. to build vibrant innovation and industrial ecosystems that adopt and diffuse new technologies, including AI.”

Profs. Elisabeth Reynolds and Simon Johnson joined Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Surveillance to discuss their new book, "Priority Technologies: Ensuring U.S. Security and Shared Prosperity," which highlights six key areas where advances in technology can drive the U.S. economy and support national security. “Quantum is the next frontier and opens up billions of dollars of opportunity,” says Reynolds. “Not just for defense and encryption issues, but also across all sorts of applications in financial services and biopharma.” 

Prof. Simon Johnson joins Michel Martin of NPR’s Morning Edition to discuss the International Monetary Fund’s latest forecast showing the impact of the war in Iran on economic growth and inflation. Johnson notes that the war “is a big shock to energy prices. Energy prices are an important element of economies around the world...So I'm afraid a lot of countries are suffering a deceleration of growth or even some negative growth.”

Prof. Christopher Knittel speaks with Associated Press reporter Paul Wiseman about the economic impact of the U.S. conflict with Iran. “A week ago or certainly two weeks ago, I would have said: If the war stopped that day, the long-term implications would be pretty small,’’ says Knittel. “But what we’re seeing is infrastructure actually being destroyed, which means the ramifications of this war are going to be long-lived.’’

Senior Research Associate Jim Walsh speaks with WBUR Here & Now host Indira Lakshmanan about where things stand one month into the U.S. conflict with Iran. 

Senior Research Associate Jim Walsh speaks with WBUR Here & Now host Indira Lakshmanan about the global impact of the United States’ conflict with Iran.